District director of medical services Dr Andrew Johnson says the hospital was prepared for a mass casualty response.

He says an area was set up to treat the walking wounded, and operating theatres were fully staffed and ready to respond.

"The absolutely extraordinary and fantastic news is that whilst we put through an awful lot of people yesterday with minor injuries and problems, we did not have any really significant trauma to deal with," he said.

"We were well within our capabilities of managing what came.

"We were actually ready and able to project ourselves further forward and deal with more."

Cairns clean up

The Cairns Regional Council in far north Queensland says it is working to restore basic services after the cyclone.

Mayor Val Schier says wheelie bins can be put out tomorrow and will be collected over the weekend.

Green waste dumps are waiving fees for the next few days, and there will be a free green waste collection some time next week.

"Some of those customers can expect to be without power for another number of days," he said.

Phone services in the Cairns region are unreliable.

Telstra says transmitters are down and it is unsure when full services will be restored.

The Cairns Base Hospital's Emergency Department has reopened.

Cairns supermarkets are open today with diminished supplies.

Store owner Peter Piccone says generator power kicked in when Cyclone Yasi hit and he has been able to reopen his two supermarkets this morning.

He says some items may be in short supply for a while because roads are cut off.

"What we've just tried to do is just open the stores and try to get onto as many suppliers as possible and of course they're all struggling to try and get things such as ice, milk and bread to us," he said.

"We started off with some of each of that stock this morning but I don't know how long it's going to last - it depends on how quickly they can replace it."